


the hands that feed you

by something_soft_and_soaked_in_pain



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Other, Pain Kink, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-15 22:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9261752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/something_soft_and_soaked_in_pain/pseuds/something_soft_and_soaked_in_pain
Summary: tattoos are a great way to come together.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alexanger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanger/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Take your time coming home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7501029) by [alexanger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanger/pseuds/alexanger). 



Alex missed John while he was in the army. It was a stupidly obvious hole in him, and Alex hated himself for it. Before John left, he was yellow. His reckless boy was bright and like sunshine, but when he came back, his boy had turned white. It was like John had been strung out and the army and days of being from home at bleached his soul. There were days where John's yellow had seeped through, and John was bright again.  
Alex and Eliza learn how to support and adjust to John's moods and John learns how to adjust to Alex and Eliza.  
The one constant when John came back were his hands. John's hands were new and rough, but familiar, and warm.  
John's fingers often stained with charcoal and printer ink, were always there to help Alex get out of his own head for a while. If John was white and sometimes yellow, Eliza was green. Eliza was constant in the way John wasn't, Eliza felt like the push of the ocean, the soft feel of wildflowers.  
Eliza's hands were like John's, familiar and comforting. Eliza's hands were like coming home. Her fingers were slender and long, fingernails trimmed down to the quick, to prevent her nervous biting.  
After Alex's top surgery, their hands had been soft and supportive, stringing him out when he needed it most and plucking out the shrapnel from his skin.  
"I'm going to get a tattoo." Alex sleepily mumbles into Eliza's neck one morning. They'd strung him out the night before, taking him down after a particularly stressful week.  
"I'm going to buy six hundred pairs of Crocs." John says, that startles Alex out of his half asleep state, recoiling back into Eliza.  
"How dare you?" Eliza asks, clutching Alex to her chest.  
"We're getting a divorce, immediately." Alex says.  
"Alex, we're not married." John protests.  
"The crocs are already changing him." Alex murmurs, voice muffled by Eliza's chest.  
"Maybe this is why we're not married. All the extra trouble of you shaming me for my love of a sensible foam shoe." John says, shaking his head.  
When Eliza gets home the next night, Alex and John are standing, staring at each other.  
They're looking at each other in various states of what the fuck, Alex's eyes are glued to the lemon yellow crocs in John's hands, John's stare is affixed to Alex's bare chest, it's bandaged but not enough to miss the vine of blackberry thorns tattooed just below his collar bones, with anthuriums and daffodils dotting them.  
"Okay, what the fuck." Eliza says, breaking the boys out of their trance.  
"Let me be the first to say I've done some pretty reckless things in my life, but none as reckless as getting a tattoo." John says.  
"You got your foot cut off. That trumps getting a tattoo." Alex says defensively.  
"You're both fuck ups. Alex less so because he didn't buy a pair of crocs." Eliza says,  
"Actually I bought two." John says, producing another pair of deep blue crocs seemingly from thin air.  
"For fucks sake, John." Alex says.

* * *

 

John gets his tattoo a day after Alex comes home with his. It takes Eliza a full twenty minutes to notice the subtle shift in his expression, the face he pulls when he rolls his arms out. She pokes right at his tattoo and he hisses in pain.  
"Jesus Christ. How'd you know?" John asks, moving away from Eliza's touch.  
"I'm a wizard." Is all the answer he gets before she's tugging up his shirt to see the tattoo. He's gotten a watercolor sprig of hyacinths and sunflowers on his shoulder.  
She traces a finger across the outline carefully, and grins.  
"I'm getting one next."  
Eliza waits a week before getting hers. She researches all that she can before she decides, fuck it and goes.  
Eliza decides on a curling vine of ivy, pink roses and red peonies blooming from it. She gets it on the inside of her arm, small enough not to be noticed while at work.  
Alex marvels at their tattoos, loves the meaning behind John's and the love in Eliza's. The daffodils and anthuriums are for them, just as John's hyacinths and sunflowers and Eliza's peonies are for him.  
He loves them.  
Alex's tattoo takes the longest to heal, almost a month and a half. He complains the entire time.  
"It's starting to _itch_." Alex complains, digging his fingers into his leg to keep from scratching at his chest.  
"I think you got this tattoo more because you wanted to be shirtless, and less than you actually wanted it." John says, while Eliza gently rubs A &D ointment into his chest and her arm. Alex makes a noise of contentment and closes his eyes.  
"I have an idea." John says. He whispers his plan into Alex's ear and his eyes shoot open as he nods. John pulls Alex so he's straddling his lap, Alex's hands on his shoulders.  
"Color?" John asks.  
"Green." Alex says softly.  
John traces his fingers around the bandages, and slowly peels them back.  
John very lightly scratches his fingernails down his tattoo, then presses his nails roughly into it. Alex moans and presses his chest more fully into John's hands. John smiles, and digs in with his nails a little more.  
"Still green?" John asks.  
"Still green." Alex says and pulls John closer. Eliza moved to watch them both, sitting heavily next to John, her hands fidgeting next to John's lap.  
"Do you want more, baby girl?" John asks.  
"Yes, sir." Alex whimpers.  
"Let's go then." John says, lifting Alex and beckoning Eliza to follow.

* * *

 

Alex is lying repose in bed between John and Eliza when he sits up suddenly.  
"I have a theory."  
"And it is?" Eliza asks.  
"Tattoos get you dicked down." Alex says.  
"Bye." Eliza says, getting up from the bed. Alex gets up and pulls her back down to the bed.  
"You're stuck with us. With our floral tattoos and John's ugly ass crocs." Alex says, kissing her fingertips.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr @balaga come scream with me about TYTCH
> 
> quick guide for the flower meanings:  
> Hyacinth-recklessness  
> Anthurium-happiness  
> Daffodils-rebirth  
> Peonies-long relationship  
> Sunflowers-flexibility  
> Roses-love


End file.
